Movie Review: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III (2006)
Mission: Impossible III (2006) – ***
I often wonder if action movies have lost their thrill or if I’ve lost my attraction to action films. Outside of the fantasy genre or comic book adaptations, there hasn’t been a white-knuckled, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride of an action film in years. Maybe it’s because there is better action in most television shows then in all the recent Michael Bay or John Woo films combined. Maybe that’s also why Tom Cruise got TV guy J.J. Abrams to direct Mission: Impossible III.
This installment of the always troubled, but perennially lucrative Tom Cruise vehicle has Ethan Hunt returning to active IMF duty after taking time off to train potential agents. Why would Ethan Hunt of all people want to remove himself from duty? To start a family of course. At a party celebrating his engagement to fiancée Julia (Michelle Monaghan), Cruise receives a call that pulls him back into the field to save the only agent he ever recommended for active duty (Keri Russell). The rescue goes awry, and like any middle aged former IMF agent, Hunt wants to finish the job.
The job, this time, is capturing the notorious Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) a black market arms dealer who is responsible for delivering centrifuges to North Korea, as well as killing Hunt’s protégé. The mission goes as planned, but Davian’s high reaching connection inside IMF allows the wanted man to escape with personal information on Hunt, including the name of the agent’s fiancée. Davian kidnaps Julia, forcing Hunt to hunt down a mysterious weapon called “The Rabbit’s Foot” that Davian was planning to sell for $850 million.
I can’t say that I enjoyed M: I III the way that I enjoy watching late-80s and early-90s action films like Lethal Weapon, RoboCop or Die Hard. I can’t even say I like it more than the first two Pierce Bronsan Bond films. It’s very much full of the action clichés that I’ve grown bored with over the years. In the midst of some hum-drum moments, M: I III still thrilled me like few recent action films in have.
J.J. Abrams, one of the minds behind TV’s Lost and Alias, does what he does best with the action genre, finding its inner soap opera. That, thankfully, doesn’t leave time for the confusing missteps of the first Mission: Impossible film or the overwrought action of the second. What we are left with, then, is a simple spy tale, rolled into a simple love story. The action is left to speak for itself, and it does.
I’m left feeling impressed by many of the films big action sequences, taking away the helicopter battle in the windmill farm and the Bay Bridge escape sequence as singularly exciting moments. The last time I responded to any sequence with such delight was during 1999’s The Matrix.
With such sequences standing out, I must say I’m not surprised that the best actor working today, Philip Seymour Hoffman, seems off his game. Davian, though undeniably villainous, is too simple a character for Hoffman to take as far as he usually can. Without baggage or back story, both of which are admittedly unnecessary, Hoffman couldn’t lose himself in Davian like he does all his characters.
Hoffman’s lackluster showing, however shows there is sudden sense of maturity in the M: Ifranchise. The selection of Abrams as director proves it, as well. If Mission: Impossible III did anything it made me want to see a Mission: Impossible IV. From a business stand point (attention producer Tom Cruise) that’s good news. From a cinematic standpoint this resurrection of what I thought would be a dead franchise is great, great news.
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